A hopper car is a type of railroad freight car used to transport loose bulk commodities such as coal, ore, grain, track ballast, and the like. The name originated from the coke manufacturing industry which is part of the steel industry

* HandGandy car - the little pump action inspection car - with option for a pull-behind flat-deck version for tools and supplies (or other workers)... likely a square 2-inch affair (each), 4 man normal max capacity.* Combine car - this is the standard half-passenger/half-baggage-mail familiar on those short little trains in the westerns (maybe only the Combine, boxcar and flat behind the engine and tender - whatever is necessary for the usual run (additional or special cars would have been previously provided and be ready to attached to the train enroute).* Observation Car - got to have that big public speaking platform at train's end (fancy cars anyway) for the politicos. Platform could be done as an add-on option to the standard 'fancy car'.* Dining Car (w/small kitchen) for the fancy folk on their long journeys.* Flat Car option: short sides in sections (1 or 2 inch) - perhaps these could be a slotted affair to switch them out* 6" wooden bridge trestle (in addition to the iron) - need something for those little big gullies; wood is cheap - iron not-so-much!* Bridge style option: that little square stick-out-to-the-side. 2" square. Used as a safety point for anyone caught on the bridge with a train approaching; they sometimes also have a rainbarrel of water sitting there, or used for storage of a HandGandy car.

@ Jaynz - When you listed 'ramped track' I presume you refering to a ramp to raise the track level up to 'the next level' as in Streets (of whatever set)... Most 'Real Life' ramps would be earthen berms and angle outwards to the sides as well - as opposed to stone/wood constructed verticle walls....

* Heighth-differential earthen berms where the trackage is several feet above the normal ground, often used in floodable areas, or where the regular ground is too uneven or too unstable to directly support the track. Half-, 1-, or 2-inch height.* Loading Ramps: short ramp at the end of the siding-track (or side of track) to allow easy access for loading/unloading wheeled vehicles onto the flatcars or into the boxcars [from ground level to heighth of the car floor]. Also used for getting the livestock onboard when used at the side.

Of course, Matt, we'll need both coaling and water towers, signal poles, ground handthrow switch mechanisms ... but I'm sure that has already been covered previously.

I could see where things might have to be broken up into two seperate Train sets: the "Wild Frontier West", and the "Settled Tamer(?) West".

[Okay, yeah, I'm one of those former modelrailroaders in the group. How could you tell? - lol]

~I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albequerque... but I know where my towel is!

One thing I would love to see is a train set where the cars are modular, basically acting as a TLX tile that you then put the car's walls and roofs on. This way you can switch out between two distinct trains without having to build complete sets of wheels, etc. for every car. Removable walls would also make access easier in-game.

My dream set would basically allow me to re-make Buster Keaton's The General as a Deadlands adventure.

Interestingly, I found that 30' is a good average for railray car length in its body for smaller-purpose cars, and this translates to 6" for our TLX system. Sleeper cars and 'long duty' cars tend to about 60' in length... Since we realistically want to limit ourselves to a paper's printing length, we'll hit a maximum length of 45' (or 9" long walls).

13' seems to be more-or-less standard (as standard as they ever get) for railway cars. This gets us to about 2-1/2" wall heights.

Width tends to be a little tricky, since the cars tend to be about 9 foot in this direction. This is going to be too small for our purposes, since you won't be able to fit minis into them! We'll have to fudge this up to 10' (two 1-inch squares) or all the way to 15' (three squares) to get to work with TLX.

Wheel base for each car comes up to roughly three foot. Again, this isn't standard in any way, but we'll need it to be. So the 'underside' of each car should rise up to 3/4".

So, the assembly:

Wheel frame is 5" by 3/4" by either 5" or 8" depending on the size of our car. On top of this we throw on a "foam board" for the floor that measures 2" by 6" or 9" inches if we're wanting to be accurate, or 3" by 6" or 9" inches if we want to stick with TLX dimensions and 'heroic' scale to allow for interiors.

Each car gets four posts which will hold walls up to 2" heights, so this works just fine with TLX-style walls down the length. The remaning 1/2 inch of height (depending on the car) will be the various roof assemblies.

Each car's base board will have a slot in the front and back to allow for linking up.

This isn't quite a perfect solution. We'll still need to make allowances for caboose platforms, and things like that...

I'll side with Patrick and Jaynz' general figures:3x6 for the older rollingstock - (already done for Mayhem Rail): * TLX sizing * reasonable car sizes: Old West smaller cars 30'=6"; post-1900 freight 40' cars = 8", stretched out for full 9-inch (single-page printing); early 20th century 'heavyweight' passenger cars (c.1920 up thru WWII era) 60'=12" (have to have two-page printing, but this would be for a later expansion(!) [Note some Pulmans were 80'=16"(!) - we'll cut that back to 15" for TLX conformity].[Reference Link: http://www.ncry.org/roster/cars.htm ] * 3" width gives center row of squares down center as aisle with row to both sides for seating in passenger cars. * undercarriage (wheels) sounds good, perhaps better than the 1" for Mayhem Rail * 1/2" tall roof enables sufficient old fasioned clerestory roofs (that's that raised bit down the center top)

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